Why Would Anyone Use AI for This?
A Boomer Writer's View of Smart and Foolish Uses of AI
When I started gingerly experimenting with AI in Autumn 2024, I felt like I was being a bit tech-forward. Not anymore. Not even for someone my age (70).
And, almost immediately after I started using AI, I started thinking about writing an article about how I was using it. Just thinking about writing it.
As you might have noticed, in the meantime, AI has lit up the Substack-o-sphere like someone just turned on my still-legal gas stove. Whoosh! (Please don't judge. 😜)
Anyhow, had I written that article all those months ago, I would have had to revise it nearly every month. But just for fun, I thought maybe I'd actually give the topic a go this week.
What I Can't See Ever Using AI For
I haven't always felt this way, but I'm actually at the point where writing is fun for me. It took years of, dare I say it, perfecting my craft before it became fun, before I began to lose myself in the joy of choosing just the right word and sentence structure. (Well, my friend and editor
may think I've given myself a tad too much credit here, but at least I no longer feel compelled to run every last thing by her before publishing. That's major progress!)Here's why writing is fun for me: Writing gets me into flow. Flow is great. Everyone should be able to do work that gets them into flow.
So why on earth would I ever, ever want to let AI do that for me?
You know what? I don't even want AI to suggest how to make my writing better. I'd much rather have Susan ask me a question that leads me to dig deeper and discover new insights. For most of the rest of the stuff she used to tell me (when we first began working together), her voice is already in my head.
I don't even want AI messing with my grammar. I'll bet for every time Google Docs points out a valid error, there are three times I wrote it exactly the way I wanted to, thank you just the same.
On the other hand, I did take a technical writing course in college and I have built up a lot of technical arrogance around my understanding of grammar. A boss challenged me once about whether I legitimately knew when a semicolon was or was not the appropriate punctuation. After he looked it up and saw that I had given him practically a textbook definition, he shut up about it. Just saying.
What I Love Using AI For
I love using AI for jobs I haven't gotten good at yet. A lot of this is stuff that English majors are good at. (I majored in Applied Math.)
Developing attention-grabbing titles. Yes, I used to be an internet marketing consultant. I used to write AdWords ads for a living. But this is still challenging for me. Although, AI isn’t always so great either, to be honest.
Creating interesting writing prompts. You know, the sort of prompts that begin with "Imagine you're a fish. What would you do if…"
Recognizing themes. Like when your English teacher asked you for the theme of a novel and she wanted something like honesty or justice. Yeah. A little esoteric for me yet. Maybe someday.
Drawing life lessons. I can see the most obvious one or two things. Ask AI and it will come up with eight or ten.
You get the idea. I'm a very nuts-and-bolts, left-brained thinker. But I'm working on it. And they say that half the battle is just being aware of the problem. The other half is being aware that AI can help you out.
The really encouraging news is that, as I see what AI has come up with, I'm getting better at these tasks myself. Learning by example. This is good!
What AI Taught Me This Month
Earlier this month, I played around with a new tool developed by AI maestro
. He's got a bunch of handy AI tools, like NoteSmith that suggests improvements to a Substack Note you drafted, and NoteFinder that scans an article and suggests a bunch of Notes based on the content.New this month is IdentitySmith. Tom was looking for some early reviewers, so I gave it a go.
The premise was that this new tool would help you find your ideal niche. I feel like I have finally found mine (after 13 years of trial and error 😱) and I wasn't interested in giving that up. Nevertheless, I was curious about what the tool could tell me. Turns out the first question asks whether you already have your niche. My "Yes" sent the tool off in the direction of how best to pursue that niche. Wonderful.
One thing I've observed about humans is that we are remarkably poor at spotting our own strengths and weaknesses. I've spent years looking for these in myself. Tools like the StrengthsFinder test have been life-changing. But co-workers, family, and friends have refined my self-knowledge in invaluable ways as well.
The problem is that old cliché: you don't know what you don't know. And there’s a corollary: you can't see what you can't see.
In my experience, this has been true of my niche as well as for me personally. But that's where IdentitySmith shines.
The tool began by asking me a bunch of questions about what I wanted to write about, what I loved about it, my personal journey, successes, and discoveries. Just being forced to think through and write answers to these questions was super helpful.
But then, IdentitySmith went on to point out my competitive advantages, my uniquities and distinctives, positive characteristics of my voice, and how best to use all of that to attract readers. Then it gave me a complete content and monetization strategy.
I was blown away by the insights. Majorly helpful!
The Takeaways
Okay, I’m not going to run this article through AI to extract the lessons. I’ll give you what I see. Maybe you’ll see even more.
Don’t voluntarily let AI steal your creative joy. If you’re having fun doing something, keep doing it. As long as you can.
Know where you need help.
If you have someone in your life who can help and has the time, great.
Otherwise, get AI to help you.
Use the results you get from AI as examples to help you improve.
Before you undertake any major new effort (like identifying your ideal niche or figuring out what Note structures work best or assembling an archive database of all your writing), look around to see if someone else has already created an AI tool to take care of it.
If you’re really adventurous, figure out how to create AI tools for yourself. AI can show you how, apparently.
The bottom line is, even if you aren’t using AI to save yourself gobs of time doing onerous tasks, your competitors are doing just that. AI is quickly moving from an interesting new toy to a mission-critical tool.
My advice: don’t get left behind.
Know someone who needs to hear this message? Please share or restack.
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